Saw my therapist today. We had a long chat about my diagnosis, she has been my therapist three and a half years now. In any case she said about the one doctor who said that “what does he know”. Ask her why I lost my mind at one point and the answer is not clear I guess but she says I just worry too much. I don’t know, she is 65 year old social worker and I think when she retires I’ll be done with therapy and just see the doctor, who I am also going to discuss this with. I have never in my life had auditory hallucinations of voices outside of my body just at one time sort of voices in my head and I told her that too. Well I’m not jumping for joy, just one more different opinion. Ask someone else they may have another one. Well hope everyone has a good day.

I wouldn’t listen to her. Like my doctor says, the wording of the diagnosis doesn’t matter. What matters is what is being done to treat you helps.

I find the diagnostic words help me, but only because when I am telling someone else (like a family member or a friend) what is going on with me it gives them something to go off. Like instead of having to name every symptom of sz I have or could have I can just say sz.

I agree with the admin, therapists aren’t taught to diagnose. I had a therapist lead me down the DID path for two years when it was really sza all along. Only a trained Pdoc can properly diagnose you and it takes time.

My current therapist has not diagnosed me with schizophrenia or schizoaffective - but she dxed me with bipolar disorder she told me. My current psychiatrist who has a research/neuroscience background and is board certified in 3 different areas of psychiatry diagnosed me with schizoaffective disorder, so did my last psychiatrist and psychologist.
Professional opinions and dxes differ with every doctor or therapist. My current therapist is not too far off the mark, because I do have bipolar disorder as well as schizophrenia. I am stable with Risperdal and so she is not actively seeing my schizophrenia side currently for some reason.
The psychiatrists diagnosis usually carries more weight than a therapists diagnosis, even when the therapist is a PHD

Most of us, by the time we have been to five psychiatrists, have gained three different diagnoses.

So true!!! I was first Bipolar, then Schizoaffective, now I’m schizophrenic! But I believe the ones that say I have SZ because they observed me for weeks in hospital five times and came to that conclusion.